Whereas the two miners loaded wagons and did seven hellish trips on pyrite or copper tunnels, the other prisoner prepared the bodies to reinforce the whole dug area once it had been emptied. This area would be entirely reinforced on the sides and ceiling of the tunnel with wooden bodies, which were torn up and shaped in such a way to be fitted with one another. This wooden reinforcement secured the tunnel up to a point to avoid collapse and provide for further digging.

In Spaç, prisoners died from mine accidents, diseases or executions by guard soldiers in escape attempts. Their bodies were not returned to their families, instead they were buried by camp command in a place that was kept secret during the years of dictatorship and after the regime’s fall this burial site was found out to have been in Shpal, Mirdita. No name was put on the prisoners’ graves, only a number. Family members have found a part of their relatives’ graves in Spaç Camp according to the prisoner’s data, which were placed in a small glass bottle in the grave, near the victim’s head.

In Spaç, there was poor quality food with no standards whatsoever.According to archival records and several testimonies collected among former prisoners, the food diet has changed frequently.Most of the time of its operation, however, daily quotas for prisoners working in Spaç’s mines were these:900 grams of bread per day.Breakfast included soup with seasonal vegetables, and sometimes a little meat.  Lunch was soup and a ladleful of pasta or rice with some meat.The standard was 40 grams of meat, but they were almost never provided with as much.Dinner was tea and 20 grams of feta cheese or, if there was no feta, 10 grams of typical yellow cheese and, in times of crisis, apple or fig marmalade.The first shift had the most normal food diet, whereas the two other shifts had tea for breakfast, soup for lunch and soup and rice or pasta for dinner.  This was adapted to their times of leaving for work and returning to the camp.Some archival documents, as well as many testimonies of former prisoners, record frequent food poisonings of prisoners.In a report dated 27th August 1979, prison command had complained for the poisoning of 150 prisoners.The most common symptoms were stomachaches and nausea.

Meeting the rates was often impossible. Few prisoners could physically handle that titanic load at work.  In many cases during the cave-ins in the tunnel, there was not enough mineral to fill seven wagons. But prison command never accepted any justification for not meeting the rate. The most common expression of officers in Spaç was “Either your plan (target) or your soul”, which implied that death awaited all those who didn’t give the regime whatever was required at all costs.